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1) Policy Focus: What's in "the Deal" for Taxpayers?
2) The David Strom Show
3) Sign up for our Action eLists and get a free pocket US Constitution!
4) See us at the Taxpayers League Session Wrapup and enter to win an ipod!
5) DeFiebre of Minnesota 2020: What do the MN State Legislature and Al-Qaida have in common?
1) Policy Focus: What's in "the Deal" for Taxpayers?
Declaring victory is what politicians do well, so it is no surprise that there is bipartisan agreement that the 2008 Legislative Session was particularly productive and praiseworthy. Well, we beg to differ.
The end-of-session negotiations left Minnesotans holding the bag for a massive new Central Corridor Light Rail boondoggle (that even its proponents now admit will increase traffic congestion) and a substantial expansion of the state's role in health care. Governor Pawlenty did manage to persuade the Legislature to agree to a cap in how much property taxes can be raised, but in our view paid too high a price to get that concession.
Overall the 2008 Legislative Session will be remembered for the massive transportation tax increase, increases in business taxes that make Minnesota even less business friendly, and a creeping state socialism embodied in the health care reform bill.
Schools and insurance brokers will be paid bounties to get people on medical welfare and will be encouraged to hand out gift certificates and other incentives to individuals who sign up for the state subsidized programs. If the idea was to build a client base for single-payer healthcare, then this "reform" seems right on target.
A provision in the health care bill that is most destructive of individual liberty is the provision for state grants to organizations to combat tobacco use and overeating. The grants will "address behavior change at the individual, community and systems levels; occur in community, school, worksite, and health care settings; and be focused on policy, systems, and environmental changes that support healthy behaviors."
Although the most instrusive and pervasive forms of state regulation of physician pay did not make the cut, the health care that passed solidifies the notion that experts and the state, not patients and doctors should determine the quality, cost and value of medical care.
Some businesses may have dodged a bullet with the Governor's veto of a minimum wage increase but large corporations with operations overseas will see an effective tax increase of massive proportions. Lawmakers called this "closing a loophole" but the so-called foreign operation corporation (FOC) tax break was intentionally written into law to promote a more business friendly environment in the state, a situation this legislature apparently and arbitrarily feels needs correcting.
Small businesses didn't escape the state's heavy hand, however. For example, those that involve road travel and on site work will see their cost of business go up thanks to the increase in the gas tax. As everybody knows, businesses don't pay taxes, consumers do. We will all pay for these increases in the cost of doing business in Minnesota.
Lastly, Minnesotans were once again treated to the spectacle of a weekend legislative "deal" in the dead of night, behind closed doors. Bills ceremoniously vetoed by the Governor were mysteriously reanimated like vampires, all in the name of "bipartisanship." So much for transparency and openness in democratic government.
So while lawmakers may be travelling the state declaring victory, in our view the 2008 Legislative Session confirmed our conviction that taxpayers are safest when Legislators are out of St Paul.
See
2) The David Strom Show
The David Strom Show sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute is broadcast weekly on AM 1280 The Patriot Saturdays 9-11 A.M. Podcasts of the show are available at Townhall.com and also directly via iTunes. (See our radio show page for details). The show is now downloaded over 11,000 times a month!
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Rep. Kurt Zellers (R-Maple Grove) was our guest and spoke about the deals being cut at the end of the legislative session and some of the dissapointments and frustrations for fiscal conservatives this session.
In the second hour. M. David Stirling Vice President of the Pacific Legal Foundation and author of Green Gone Wild: Elevating Nature Above Human Rights described the harmful consequences of environmental legislation such as the Endangered Species Act and the adverse effects of pesticide bans on humans.
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3) Sign up for our Action eLists and get a free pocket US Constitution!
Visit http://www.minnesotafreemarkets.org/ and click Join! on the toolbar to sign up for one of our elists. Everyone with a mailing address in our database by May 31 will get a free copy of the Cato Pocket Constitution and Declaration of Independence mailed to that address.
[Note: If you have never signed up on our site before and have received this email directly (not fowarded from a friend) leave the fields blank when the site asks you to "verify" your name. If you are already receiving this email directly you are subscribed by your email address to our updates list but we may not have your mailing address on file. Click the "join" tab to register.]
4) See us at the Taxpayers League Session Wrapup and enter to win an ipod!
The Taxpayers Leagueof Minnesota is sponsoring a "Session Wrap-up" event at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, May 27th at the Metropolitan Club in Golden Valley (394 & 100). It will include a run-down of the 2008 session from a handful of taxpayer-friendly legislators. We'll be there, launching our iPod nano giveway, drawing to be held live on The David Strom Show in June.
5) DeFiebre of Minnesota 2020: What do the MN State Legislature and Al-Qaida have in common?
According to our colleagues at Minnesota 2020, "freedom" is a word that belongs in quotation marks. In an article entitled "Minnesota in the Transportation Safety Slow Lane" Conrad de Fiebre laments the fact that Minnesota's political leaders have been sacrificing thousands of Minnesotans' lives on the alter of "freedom" by failing to pass laws forcing Minnesotans to put 8-year-old children in car safety seats, as well as making failure to wear a seat belt a primary offense (allowing police to stop motorists for no other reason than that they are failing to wear a seat belt).
According to de Fiebre "any reduction in fatal accidents" would justify the introduction of more intrusive laws by our Legislature. In fact, he compares our Legislators to al-Qaida terrorists for failing to enact such laws.
Let us clue Minnesota 2020 in to a few facts: al-Qaida wants to kill Americans because we limit our government's power, restricting it from telling us what to wear, what to watch, and what to say. It is entirely in line with American traditions to restrict government power even in cases where passing a law might indeed save lives, simply because saving lives is not the only task we expect of government.
By de Fiebre's logic, our Legislature is on a murder spree by failing to reduce the speed limit to 25 miles per hour, or even 40 on the highways. After all, thousands of lives could be saved by such a move.
The Minnesota Free Market Institute conducts research and advocates for policy that limits government involvement in individual affairs and promotes competition and consumer choice. By analyzing the actions of the past and applying the enduring lessons of the free market, the Minnesota Free Market Institute creates policy options for the future. The Minnesota Free Market Institute accepts PayPal! To donate click here.
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